Atlas
by Niente Zero
Summary: Benton broods over the death of a colleague. Absolute spoilers for Juliet is Bleeding. T for adult themes.


**This story is my maiden flight here on fanfiction .net. My great thanks go to Linwe Elendil for the inspiration and encouragement to write this.**

Benton Fraser was indulging in a solitary vice most common to people raised to the highest standards of duty: Self-recrimination. The young mountie was lying on his back on the uncarpeted floor of his deliberately austere apartment, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, his hair as rumpled as the military style he favored allowed. He cut an impressive figure in spite of the scars that marred the otherwise smooth skin.

"Seventy one." He counted, raising his torso into a sit-up. "Seventy two. Seventy three. Seventy four." His t-shirt was damp with sweat even though cold air came into the room through the window, left ajar to relieve the sensation of being trapped in the city apartment block. He let his breath out between teeth pressed together, almost clenched.

It had been a long time since he slept.

Why had he stopped to talk to Ray? Fraser had noticed something out of place, a man who shouldn't be where he was, at the same time that Louis had caught Ray's keys and headed for Ray's beloved Riviera. He was only yards away from the car when the bomb went off. If he hadn't stopped for those crucial seconds, stopped to say "Order me pigs in a blanket, too", a good man, a good policeman, would still be alive. How absurd it was. How brutally, filthily absurd.

"Eighty three." He tried to focus on the feel of his stomach muscles, his back and shoulders, as he pulled himself into each sit-up, to focus on the number, to stay in the small room and not let his mind run back over what had happened, how he'd failed someone so drastically.

It'd been a long night before Ray's car had exploded in a brilliant tower of flames. Fraser's time in Chicago had been eventful by any measure, but after the first anger at Detective Vecchio's neglect of Fraser's father's murder had passed, after the Chicago cop had shown his true colors of loyalty under the machismo, it hadn't scared or worried Fraser that everywhere they turned trouble showed up. He knew Ray had his back, like he had Ray's back.

That's what partners meant. That's what Louis Gardino had meant to Jack Huey before that terrible night. A partner was someone with whom you developed a natural rhythm, like dancing. Benton knew that with Ray Vecchio beside him, he could dodge and dive and roll through the stickiest of situations.

It was different when Frank Zuko was in the picture. It wasn't a game any more.

"Ninety seven. Ninety eight. Ninety nine. One hundred. One hundred and one." Fraser pushed on, nowhere near reaching the physical exhaustion he craved. Forget Zuko. Fraser grunted with anger, at Zuko and at himself. Maybe if he'd really been able to let that one go, he wouldn't have been distracted later. There was no question that he'd quietly enjoyed the chance to throw his weight around in the restaurant, brawling alongside Ray and Huey and Louis. After all, Zuko had done his best to insult and demean Fraser, as well as getting into it with Ray.

"One hundred and eleven."

But it didn't matter. Whatever had happened before or after didn't matter. It didn't matter what had lead up to the bomb being planted. It didn't matter that Fraser was tired and drained from the adrenaline rush of going head to head with the hired goons of that sonofabitch.

"One hundred and fifteen. One hundred and sixteen." He let his head drop back against the floor, hard. 'Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades' his father's voice taunted him from his memory. It would never matter to Louis Gardino's family, or the partner who counted on him the way Fraser counted on Ray, that he'd been close to saving the man. Fraser laughed at himself, more a cough than a laugh, barely audible.

Diefenbaker had been lying close, watching his troubled master, his head between his paws. At the sound of this laugh, he lifted his head and whined.

"I know, Dief." Fraser said. "You don't approve of me wallowing in my guilt."

The wolf let out a short bark of agreement.

"You're right. It's self indulgent. Do you have a better idea?" Fraser's voice was direct and curt. Then, after a pause, he lifted himself into another sit-up.

"One."

Dief growled softly, a warning sound.

"Two. Three. Four."

The wolf got up off the floor and padded over to the window, squeezing his way out onto the fire escape and into the Chicago night. Fraser couldn't blame him for not wanting to hang around. He laughed again, the same sound pushed out through half open lips. No, apparently the only person to blame was himself.

The others blamed him. The police, who would never be his family in the same way that they were Louis's family. They blamed him for the wrong thing. No one would ever say "But Benny, you've got the world's sharpest eyes. How did you miss that?" even though most of the time they treated him like a magical boy-scout. They didn't blame him for not seeing the car bomber in time, they blamed him for not wanting to nail Zuko.

"Thirteen. Fourteen." Dear god, how much he wanted to see Zuko hurt. Benton threw all his anger into his sit-ups, his back and shoulders rigid, the muscles and sinews straining. Of course, he'd been injured before, in the line of duty and in the rough and tumble of growing up. Fraser men didn't let that sort of thing stop them. He'd learned to bite down on his bottom lip and deny feeling a thing, about the same time he'd learned to walk. He'd walked away from hockey injuries so often every winter of his childhood that sucking it up and burying the pain deep under a mask of indifference were as much a part of him as the unstrained Canadian courtesy that Ray made fun of him for. There was no reason Zuko's message should be any different.

But it was. It was intended to humiliate him, bring him to his knees, literally, before they killed him. Zuko didn't just want him dead. He wanted him scared and broken, then dead. Fraser wasn't that easily broken, but scared, that had happened. The mobster had tried to buy his integrity, and when that had failed, to steal his faith in people. The vengeful part of Benton Fraser that lay like a murky drift of seaweed, waiting to tangle and catch him, under his unflappable exterior, would have liked nothing more than to see Frankie Zuko railroaded on a murder charge. His eyes were dark and clouded, as he felt in every inch of his tired body how good it would be to see Zuko suffering.

"Forty, forty one." Exhaustion was beginning to creep in on Fraser. The intervals where he had only enough energy to move his body and to count aloud, were finally beginning to outlast the intervals where his mind ran back over the last twenty four hours desperately seeking absolution or at least relief. He should sleep. It was impossible that he would sleep. He'd be able to sleep when he no longer saw Louis reaching for the door handle of the Riviera, just too many steps away to stop him. Benton squeezed his eyes closed tight, but it didn't help. The light from the fire was burned into his memory. No one else had noticed the stranger around Ray's car. Why was it his burden? Because being the one who saw things was his part of the partnership?

"Fifty three." Lifting himself felt like lifting the whole world. "Fifty four." He didn't notice Diefenbaker come back in until he felt a soft nuzzle against the side of his neck.

Fraser sat up, and Diefenbaker leaned into him, licking his face with as much of a worried look as a very smart wolf could muster. It was time for Benton to stop punishing himself. He buried his face in the wolf's thick scruff. If the fur got wet, Diefenbaker wasn't telling anyone. It was time to rest, he had much to do in the morning. In the morning he would have to have to put back on the mask of the imperturbable sentry, all feeling stuffed back inside the Fraser Men Don't Cry box.

End


End file.
